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Once Harry had sat down in front of Professor Quirrell, the man put away the parchments that he'd been looking through to look Harry in the eyes.
Despite Harry's paranoia, there was no legilimency probe to accompany the gesture.
"Would you like some tea, Mr. Evans?" the man asked instead, snapping his fingers to the side.
"No, thank you," Harry answered, wanting to keep this talk as short as physically possible. Also, you never knew what people put in your tea.
A silver tray with only one teacup appeared on the wooden desk of the professor. A steaming teapot was raised by some invisible force to pour the warm liquid into the container.
"Suit yourself, I personally always enjoy one after a lesson. Makes my throat itch, talking so much," the professor muttered and took a sip. He then leaned back in his chair and continued looking at Harry.
"What did you want to talk to me about, professor? I can't imagine I've had the opportunity to do anything wrong yet," Harry said in an attempt to be lighthearted.
Quirrell scoffed. "Oh, you're certainly not in trouble. Quite the opposite, in fact. You see, Professor Potter, despite his non-academic ambitions, left very detailed notes on the lessons he gave and the students he interacted with."
Non-academic ambitions? Harry wondered. The man was an Auror. Of course his ambitions were not academic.
"I couldn't help but notice that you two had a deal, some homework correction in return for private lessons in duelling." Quirrell prodded. "Transfiguration specifically, it said?"
Harry nodded, surprised that this was being addressed rather than the myriad of other things that could have been the topic of discussion. "Yes, Professor Potter and I had an understanding. I originally came to him before Professor Flitwick agreed to teach me because I didn't want to wait. I would correct the homework of the first-years, and he would give me one hour of tutelage per week. It helped prepare me for the duelling tournament," he said.
"Yes, the duelling. I couldn't help but notice that this passion has made you slightly overqualified for the class. But, quite frankly, it wouldn't be any different if you moved up a year or two," Quirrell said with a faraway look in his eye.
"Considering that we cover ways to handle a different creature or spell in most lessons, I never felt like skipping ahead in Defence against the Dark Arts," Harry said as an explanation for the unsaid question.
"It would be slightly unwise. However, seeing the quality of education being offered in this class, one must question if it is perhaps better for one to be done with it faster rather than later. It is not always that they hire someone like me," the professor replied with a self-satisfied smirk as if laughing at a joke only he knew.
Well, Harry was in on it too, as was Dumbledore probably, so the irony wasn't lost on him.
"Regardless," Professor Quirrell continued after taking another sip of tea. "I wanted to ask you if you would be willing to accept a similar offer from me. Like most Hogwarts professors, I'm swamped by homework, and would rather spend the time teaching than correcting it."
Harry's mind raced as he realised what was happening. Voldemort was trying to get his hooks into him.
"If I may ask? Why me?" Harry said. "I'm sure the higher year students would be able to correct more than just the first year and the second year homework."
Quirrell scoffed. "It's quite obvious that you're the only one who's likely to actually use what I teach you in return," he said sarcastically. "Let's not be falsely humble. All of your yearmates are going to listen in Defence against the Dark Arts and never use the knowledge for the rest of their lives, even if they're in a situation where they would need it. You're the only one likely to actually use the skills I would impart, if for no other reason than the fact that duelling will imprint them into you even more thoroughly. You seem to follow your passions, which is always better than doing things out of obligation, as is the case in most pure-blood families." Quirrell muttered the last part. "Also, you having in the past done the same deal with Professor Potter speaks well for you. He continued it for the whole year, which means that you didn't have issues handing in properly corrected homework or keeping deadlines."
"That's true, but I don't actually know if I have time this year to do the same," Harry said slowly. "Professor Flitwick has essentially hijacked most of my schedule. He's quite excited about next year."
Quirrell grinned. "Well, I spoke to Professor Flitwick, and he agreed that I should approach you. He said something along the lines of. 'A duellist's greatest strength is the variability of their repertoire. Harry should learn from whatever sources he can find rather than condemning himself to only one.'"
The young Hufflepuff grimaced. That did actually sound like something that Flitwick would say. But, he really did not want to spend any more time with Voldemort than he strictly needed to.
However, he would likely learn a lot of things from the man and refusing the offer would be incredibly out of character and could force Quirrell's hand. Make him investigate why Harry didn't take the offer. After all, from his perspective, the boy shouldn't have any real reason to avoid the Defence against the Dark Arts professor, so his doing so would be suspicious.
In this case, lightly offending Voldemort in a place where he couldn't retaliate was likely the best option.
"Well, I do agree with Professor Flitwick here. But Professor Potter specialised in Transfiguration. May I ask what you specialise in?" Harry asked. Throwing shade at Quirrell's, or Voldemort's competency, might just be what Harry needed to piss off the man enough to rescind his offer.
The professor gave a dry chuckle. "Doubting my ability to teach? Well, considering the state of this job, I can't fault you. But, as should be quite obvious from my job title, I am very good at defending against the Dark Arts. They are one of the magical disciplines that you are most unlikely to meet in the duelling circuit. It would likely be helpful for you to gain more experience with it elsewhere," the man hinted. "I would also truly appreciate being able to offload some of the homework. As you know, I was the Muggle Studies professor before, and it was an elective. I only ever had to teach people third year and up," he sounded slightly disgusted at his previous position, or was that just Harry reading into things? "I noticed that it wasn't an elective that you took. Not interested in the lives of muggles?" Quirrell joked.
Harry experienced a slight amount of whiplash at the sudden topic shift. "W-well," he stuttered, "considering that I grew up with muggles, I didn't feel a need to study them additionally as well."
Quirrell nodded. "It's an understandable choice. The Muggle Studies classes are hardly as good at actually conferring information as simply living in the muggle world for a time. I'm a half-blood as well, in case you didn't know. It's perhaps one of the reasons why I've taught the two subjects that I've taught. My upbringing made me more familiar with muggle culture, and the fact that I was a half-blood at Hogwarts made it necessary to defend myself against the Dark Arts, or in other words, the bullying that's inflicted on students who dare get better grades than their ancestrally glorified but dumber counterparts," Quirrell muttered. He wasn't really using a tone that invoked pity, but Harry found himself nodding along for some reason.
He, too, was a half-blood whose academic accomplishments had at points made him a target for others. Similarly, likely Voldemort had been as well. What a sad trio they made together. He refrained from scoffing. In the end, wasn't the only truly powerful pureblood mentioned in the books Grindelwald? Everyone else was a half-and-half.
"I would urge you, perhaps if you take nothing else from this discussion, that duelling will not necessarily serve to protect you against those who wish you harm," Quirrell said. "It's a sanitised sport, and those who succeed in it are not always necessarily the best fighters. In fact, most of the magic that you'll encounter if anyone truly tries to hurt you," he made a dramatic pause, "such as the Dark Arts, or the obliviation charm, those are forbidden. You'll miss out on the opportunity to train for real dangerous situations."
"I'm well aware of the fact that duelling is not a perfect representation of an actual fight. however, it still hones the reflexes and whatnot," Harry said and thus committed his first conversational mistake since he'd been told to stay behind after class.
The professor's eyes glinted. "I'm not a duellist," he admitted. "But, I am a fighter. I travelled the world this past year, as you know, and the things I saw and had to confront were not always resolvable with kind words. I can help you, Harry," he said, using Harry's first name for the first time. "One half-blood to the other. We need to look out for each other, or else we'll be gobbled up by this disgusting world. Spat out when we have nothing more to offer." The bitterness seemed real and almost made Harry wonder what exactly fuelled it.
He closed his eyes and cursed in his mind, however, thinking of something else entirely. In hindsight, Quirrell had obviously manipulated him. By suggesting that duelling was not something that perfectly taught fighting, Harry responded with wounded pride, which gave Quirrell an in for an offer that he couldn't refuse.
Any normal 13-year-old would have been convinced, Voldemort was hardly uncharismatic. Similarly, if it was assumed that he was Harry Evans, the knowledge-hungry genius who liked to learn everything under the sun, then he wouldn't have a reason to reject the offer after even his most respected mentor, Professor Flitwick, had said it would be a good idea. If he said no now, then Voldemort would become suspicious. Quirrell had showcased himself as a perfectly competent defence professor. If Harry didn't have extra-dimensional knowledge, there would be no reason to reject the offer.
The only question was. Did he even want to reject the offer?
He could learn things. Harry didn't want to practise the Dark Arts, but Quirrell couldn't teach him those anyway, as it would ruin his persona. There was too much risk in Harry running off and tattling to Dumbledore. Also, duelling had in fact just been a surrogate activity to learn how to defend himself. What better way to learn than from the man who would most likely be the one to come after him in the future?
Even if Quirrell was not in the moment Voldemort himself, which was hard to ascertain, who better to teach him to defend himself against Death Eaters than a Death Eater?
All in all, the situation was simple. Voldemort and Quirrel didn't know that Harry knew that they were a melded conscience. They were simply trying to get their hooks into what they saw as a talented young man, just like Voldemort had done with Barty Crouch Jr., and doubtlessly countless others. The fact of the matter was also that by letting Harry do the homework, the duo would gain more time to work on getting to the philosopher's stone.
Harry, meanwhile, would learn from the best, or from a man possessed by the best. He would reinforce some knowledge by doing the homework, and all he'd have to sacrifice would be suffering the presence of a man who was set to die anyway. Harry didn't believe that Quirrell would try to harm him at the moment, and for similar reasons, he wouldn't attempt to teach him the Dark Arts. He just had to avoid the man towards the end of the year when he would make the attempt at the stone.
Harry believed Dumbledore would be able to deal with Voldemort with all the information Harry had given him.
It was better, in fact, if Quirrell was distracted by Harry so that he didn't go to the Room of Requirement to check on the diadem, which was presumably long gone. Harry would, in fact, be doing a public service.
And if he had some selfish reasons, such as getting instruction indirectly from a Dark Lord, then so be it. He didn't owe anyone anything.
He realised that he'd closed his eyes for too long and that the thoughts he had swirling around in his mind were too dangerous to think about if Quirrell attempted to breach his Occlumency shields.
"I think I can handle the first and second-year homework assignments," Harry finally said, pretending as if the thinking pause had been about to offer.
It had been, in a way.
"And I think it's only fair that in return, I get two hours of personal instruction a week. Correcting the homework will take me around three to four hours, going by last year's experience. Is there a specific day we could always meet on?" Harry asked.
Quirrel gave him a tight smile. His manipulation had worked, but not for the reason that he likely thought it had.
Harry would pump him for all that he could. And then, at the end of the year, Harry would discard him like an old cum rag for Dumbledore to trap in the Mirror of Erised.
Harry smiled back.
"Fridays work best, I imagine you want the weekend to recuperate afterwards," Quirrell suggested.
Harry nodded. Fridays also worked for him. Flitwick didn't like them for some reason, so everything would blend in together perfectly.
"It's a deal," Harry said.
"It's a deal," Voldemort replied.
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AN: I imagine that this is an interesting chapter to some of you. Why is Harry accepting the deal? I hope the reasons are obvious. As for why Quirrell isn't stuttering, I'll let you find out. You thought the Werewolf last year was hype, wait for this shit bruh. Anyway, advance chapters (32=90k words=one mid-sized novel) and interlude votes on Patreon, appreciate the support! Also, check out my other stories, might like em ;)